how you know inside me
by merrygloom
Summary: Not everyone ends up with their soulmate. Team RWBY contend with war and creatures of Grimm and soulmates and love and insecurities their four years training at Beacon. Luckily they have each other. A love story that isn't about loving someone or falling in love, but the meaning, the journey, and the value of love. A subversion of sorts of the Soulmate Identifying Marks Trope.
1. we could be

**Chapter One** , we could be

Ruby Rose is fifteen and her soulmate mark still hasn't activated. She is starting to doubt it ever will.

It happens sometimes, someone who doesn't have a soulmate mark and no soulmate to find. Ruby just never wanted to be that person.

Her sister's soul mate mark had activated when her sister was thirteen and Yang had been a bit of a late bloomer in that respect. Ruby had been eleven and more than half her class at Signal were giggling and sharing their newly developed marks, bearing the name of their soulmate that they would meet and love someday. Some of them were already meeting for the first time, some of them already best friends.

Ruby dreams of a hero's life; helping people, saving the day, slaying creatures of Grimm… and kissing her soulmate at the end of the day. That's how all the best night time stories Yang told her before bed went. It isn't like Ruby doesn't know that not all soulmate relationships end happily like in the movies, she knows what happened with her parents. Hell, she knows being a huntress or any kind of hero often ends in tragedy, like with her mom. Still Ruby desires a romantic hero's life as a huntress with a soulmate and a happily ever after.

Ruby is starting Beacon Academy two years early, jumpstarting her career as a huntress and hero, but she does not have a soulmate mark. It is a dark shadow upon her heroic dreams.

Her new classmates have their soulmate marks though and for the first time (but certainly not the last) she witnesses soulmates meeting for the first time twice in the same day. It isn't rare to witness, but it is rare that one party of both pairs rejects their soulmate out right at first meeting.

The first is a brusque "No," and a disgusted curled lip from the crabby princess (heiress, actually) that she'd accidentally exploded in the courtyard.

The second is while everyone else is curling up to sleep in their sleeping bags for the night. She can't see them in the dark, but she hears the "I don't want you," whispered in the dark. Ruby waits long moments for the sounds of shuffling back into sleeping bags to die down before she reaches her hand out to clasp her sister's hand. Yang turns over and ruffles Ruby's hair.

"Don't worry about it, Rubes. Go to sleep." Ruby shuts her eyes but doesn't let go of her sister's hand. She tries not to cry.

Ruby is terrified of ending up alone. She has never been the best at socializing or making friends and after her mom died she'd decided she didn't need anyone more than Yang, Dad, her Uncle Qrow, and the soulmate she was destined to meet. Or not. Now she is going to actually have to meet and socialize with people she doesn't know if she wants any chance at love or friendship with someone that isn't related to her.

It's a bit of a surprise when by the end of her first semester at Beacon she's actually kinda sorta good friends with not just her own team but with the members of team JNPR too.  
When Ruby meets Penny, she doesn't know how much they have in common until later. Ruby just thinks Penny is sort of weird. When Penny tells her she isn't a real girl, that she is the first synthetic person who can generate an Aura but she doesn't have a soulmate mark, Ruby tells her being made of nuts and bolts instead of squishy guts doesn't make her any less real that Ruby is. She also tells Penny she doesn't have a soulmate mark either.

The relief and wonder on Penny's face makes Ruby's anxiety over not having a soulmate almost worth it. Ruby is glad to have a friend who experiences the loneliness only someone wearing a skin without a soulmate mark can understand.

Ruby decides to give dating a try after that conversation but doesn't get the chance until her second year at Beacon begins. Her first year living in Vale, the world needs saving from Roman and Cinder and the Grimm and she is a hero who fights the bad guys and protects the people. Ruby learns that heroes don't have time to find love no matter how Yang's bedtime stories went.

Her second year begins and this time Remnant really is at peacetime. Somehow she ends up dating her partner, half-way through her second year.

Dating Weiss is… nice. Weiss is strong and an excellent huntress and Myrtenaster is a really great weapon and Weiss is a really good kisser to boot. Weiss is pretty and smart and fun to hang out with too, especially now that she has mellowed out and isn't so abrasive about everything. Ruby isn't sure what else she could want in a lover or soulmate.

A couple months after they start dating, Ruby tells her about not having a soulmate mark even though Weiss has probably already noticed by now. She is embarrassed when she ends up crying but Weiss doesn't make fun of her. Ruby is glad Weiss doesn't compare her own rejection of her soulmate or give her soothing platitudes. Weiss just returns her honesty with her own and it is nice and sweet and safe. That night their eyes are red-rimmed and their noses red and cheeks tear stained but they are laughing in relief and they kiss.

Ruby is happier than she ever imagined, dating Weiss – her partner, teammate, and girlfriend. She imagines how it would be if Weiss's name was on her skin, if her life would be complete. She wonders if Weiss wouldn't have wanted her if Weiss's soulmate mark was Ruby Rose. Maybe that is why her skin is blank, so Weiss would give her a chance.

Their relationship doesn't end on bad terms less than a year later, but it isn't exactly happy either. It just ends with solemn agreement. They want different things as lovers but they both want to be partners and teammates and the best of friends like they had been. Ruby cries about it for a while, eating chocolate chip cookies faster than Yang can bake, but her sister and her mom's secret chocolate chip cookie recipe that only her sister knows get her through her first break up when she is seventeen. Penny helps too, dragging her out of the dorms and into the city where they explore and laugh and it helps get her mind off of Weiss.

More than anything it helps that she hasn't actually lost Weiss as a friend.

At the end of her third year at Beacon, Ruby gets a sort of embarrassing crush on Ren. At first she'd thought he and Nora were soulmates, but apparently they aren't… but then apparently they are. It confuses Ruby, but she listens when Ren tells her they aren't those kind of soulmates. More than friends and lovers, more than teammates and partners, but not soulmates that want to date. Their relationship as soulmates was more significant than any other relationship they had or would ever have, but they dated separately. Ruby knows it is possible, but most people end up dating their soulmates because the best lovers are your best friend and soulmate.

Still, Ruby doesn't judge. She and Ren never date even though Ren isn't opposed. Mostly she is mortified for having a crush on him in the first place.

(Mostly she wants a lover that can love her like a soulmate would.)

She cries it out for a bit with Yang, but the tears are mostly cathartic. She isn't going to give up and isn't going to settle for a love less than what she wants to have.

It is the end of her second semester of her fourth and final year at Beacon. She will soon graduate and be a full fledge huntress. Even though her team doesn't have to, they've long since agreed that they aren't going to break up the team. They are going to be heroes and huntresses together after graduation and even if Ruby is missing a soulmate, well she has friends and teammates and family she wouldn't trade for anything. She will not stop looking.

Then Penny tells her, "Friend… I don't think of you as just a friend. I think I – I might like you more than that."

"Like what?" Ruby asks, eyes wide.

"Like, like I might love you the way a lover does. Maybe more than that."

And everything comes together, just like Yang's bedtime stories, like a hero's story.

Ruby falls hard for Penny the moment she lets herself. Penny is funny and honest and strong and her laughter makes Ruby feel like she can take on the world. They date and kiss and bear their souls honestly and easily.

By the time Ruby is graduating, they get themselves tattooed with each other's names. Penny holds her hand when she gets Penny tattooed upon her chest, right over her heart. Ruby cries happy tears. Ruby sits with Penny while Penny's father personally tattoos Penny's synthetic skin, right over where Penny's heart would be. Penny's dad said they could just get Penny a brand new skin, pre-tattooed, but the process is important to Penny so he doesn't say anything more.

After graduation, Ruby takes Penny to Patch to meet her dad and Uncle Qrow. The entire team comes too, just as they had after first, second, and third year for break. Weiss's father and sister have cut her off and Blake never had a family apart from the White Fang to return to. Their team has long been family now.

Taiyang embraces Penny the same as he does his daughters and her team and welcomes Penny to the family and tells her to make herself at home, his eyes tired but proud.

"It isn't much but it is everything I need," Ruby's dad says.

Uncle Qrow later pulls her to the side and tells Ruby that the two are lucky to have each other.

"Your face is like your mom's," Penny tells her while Ruby shows her pictures in their extensive photo album collection. Penny's finger is pointing to photo with Summer and her and Yang. They are smiling at her father as he takes the photo. Her parents and later Uncle Qrow had taken documenting every moment of her and Yang growing up very seriously. They'd even organized every photo she and Yang had sent to them from Beacon too. Photos of her team and teams JNPR and CFVY and some of Neptune and Sun with their team as well, and of course photos with Penny.

Ruby nods and leans on Penny's shoulder, while Penny continues, "But your personality is more like your Uncle Qrow's!"

Ruby laughs, "Maybe. I've never thought about it really," She tilts her head to consider.

"Hey," Ruby says when she hears the distant call of a Beowulf in the gray forests surrounding her childhood home. "Wanna slay some Grimm?"

Penny laughs, "Sure! Lead the way, Soulmate!"

Ruby is nineteen and a huntress and hero and she has family and a team and a soulmate, and she has been involved in war that she helped win, but it isn't her happy ending merely the beginning of her adventure and her soulmate is right by her side with her.

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Thank you for reading. Read on Ao3 for more author notes.


	2. i'll unfold before you

**Chapter Two** , i'll unfold before you

Weiss Schnee meets her soulmate on her first day at Beacon Academy. She takes one look at him before sharply declaring "No," right to his face and turning on her heel.

She'd known well before her soulmate mark ever activated, that she would probably not end up marrying her soulmate. Her parents are not soulmates, nor were any of the Schnee's as far back in recorded history as she can find. Still, when her soulmate mark activated she was ten and naively imagines that maybe someday she will marry the Jaune Arc etched onto her hand. For a long while she places all of her hopes in her soulmate loving her unconditionally the way she has always desired and always denied.

She is 17 now and wiser. Weiss is not like her father and she isn't going to marry someone for business but she isn't going to love someone just because they are her soulmate. She will carve out her own path in life. So she is not disappointed in her soulmate the Vomit Boy, just disgusted. She takes care of him efficiently and ignores his pleading while he stumbles after her and the klutz who had knocked over her luggage gapes after them both.

When Cardin Winchester asks her on a date half way through her first semester, she says yes. He is a bit mean and over-confidant and perhaps more radically discriminatory against Faunus than she agrees to but he hates Jaune Arc and Weiss likes that about him.

Unfortunately the date ends before they can leave the restaurant to go to the movies. Apparently, Cardin is meaner than she gave him credit for and might be a bully and a misogynistic prick to boot. She splashes her drink into his arrogant face and storms out on him after yelling at him for a bit. She pays and leaves her waitress a tip larger than the bill.

Later, when she tells her team, Ruby laughs uneasily. Yang tells her she should have beat the shit out of him while Blake doesn't even look up from her book.

"What did you really expect from a bigot and a bully anyway?" Blake asks her darkly, the way she does whenever Faunus rights come up. Weiss rolls her eyes but doesn't answer because she isn't sure.

All she knows is that she wants to be better than the Schnee name and that's how she convinces herself to not hate Blake when she finds out exactly who Blake really is and where she came from. She is not like her family, she is made to do and be better.

The next boy she dates is Neptune and he is charming and cool and just her type, even if he tells her that he has a bit of a crush on Yang at first too. She can handle that even if it annoys her.

Weiss doesn't even say anything about his soulmate mark on his bicep, _Sun Wu Long_. It isn't like she doesn't understand and anyway it is as much her business as her soulmate mark is to him.

They date until the end of her first semester her second year at Beacon, staying together through a war. The long distance had been a strain, but that isn't why she leaves him. It isn't even being disowned by her father and sister after Schnee Industries had been caught up on the wrong side of the war, something she still cries about and Neptune doesn't really understand ("You father is an awful person and you are better off without him anyway.")

What happens is this: Neptune tells her what a great guy her soulmate is. That is how she finds out that Neptune only asked her out after Jaune cornered him and told him to man up and go out with her if he actually liked her even if he doesn't know how to dance, because Jaune would do anything for a chance with Weiss. Neptune tells her maybe she could try being platonic soulmates with Jaune, like him and Sun she assumes he means.

"I cannot believe you can say that about that – that pathetic idiot!" she screams, "How dare you suggest that him and I should –" and she shudders at the thought.

Weiss dumps him the very next day, after deliberating with her team. Weiss doesn't cry about Neptune but she does mourn the break up. She just doesn't have time to deal with guys that need someone Jaune to give them advice about how to date. Weiss doesn't want Jaune in her life at all, not even as a friend.

That's why Weiss decides to stop dating guys because they are all morons.

Instead she dates Ruby who is also a moron, but smart enough to know that Jaune is a bit of a loser even if Ruby still likes him enough to be his friend. Ruby respects that Weiss doesn't want any relationship with Jaune or for any of his meddling in her life and that is all that really matters when it comes to Jaune and Weiss.

Being with Ruby is much better than the boys and much easier, more honest and freeing. She hadn't imagined a relationship could be more liberating than being single. Ruby opens up to her about not have a soulmate mark even though she never asked, about Ruby's loneliness and anxiety that came with not having a soulmate mark. Weiss doesn't understand, but she returns her girlfriend's honesty with the same sort of sincerity. Weiss tells her girlfriend about how none of the Schnee's married their soulmate or even kept in touch. Instead the Schnee's married whoever would best serve Schnee Industries. She tells Ruby that isn't why she'd rejected Jaune though.

Ruby listens to Weiss tell her that she doesn't want someone her father picked out for business nor someone that her skin, fate, or destiny picked out for her.

"I want to be better than my family and better than the fate in my blood has in store for me." Weiss murmurs while they kiss. Ruby hums.

It isn't Ruby's fault when Weiss has to break her heart a couple months before their first year anniversary together.

(Weiss's heart breaks too).

Weiss doesn't want a soulmate or anything like that. She can handle commitment but she doesn't want to feel obliged to maintain a relationship when things change just because things change. She doesn't want just one person to be her end-all be-all, she can't handling being someone's everything.

Ruby wants a hero's story and that comes with a soulmate and Weiss can't be the soulmate Ruby wants and deserves. So they break up and Ruby and Weiss cry, even if they still have each other every other way. Yang bakes chocolate chip cookies for Ruby and Blake reads to her out loud from her soppy romance novels and they pick them apart and laugh and cry. She finds out Blake had just broke up with Sun and they lean on each other.

"I love her, I do," Weiss cries "I wish –," but she stops herself because she doesn't know what she wishes. She doesn't want to be different and she doesn't want Ruby to be different either.

"I didn't. Love him that is," Blake confesses and then rushes to amend, "Not that way. I wish I did. It would be easier if I did."

Weiss has a string of casual relationships that don't last very long after that, her classmates, some upperclassmen and some underclassmen as well. It is during her third year that she makes out with Pyrrha Nikos.

Weiss hadn't known it her first year, but she thinks Pyrrha might have been her first crush.

When Weiss takes off Pyrrha's pajama top to touch her warm skin, she cannot stop her gasp at seeing _Jaune Arc_ along Pyrrha's spine but she doesn't mention it. If there is one thing she has learned about soulmate marks during her time at Beacon is that they rarely work out the way they do in the movies even for people who aren't Schnee's.

The two girls that share a soulmate mark share a night together.

Afterwards Weiss mostly dates civilians, trying to separate duty from love, but she finds she is most attracted to those that understand what being a huntress entails and she tires of them.

Her last day of her third year, Weiss reads about Winter's wedding on her scroll but she didn't receive an invite. She hadn't expected one but it still hurts. She talks about it with Blake, who holds her and strokes her hair.

"We were never close, but I just – oh I don't know. Maybe being around Ruby and Yang has lead me to have unrealistic hopes for my sister." Weiss wipes at her eyes, but she isn't crying. She wishes she could cry about it, maybe it would be easier to handle.

Blake hums as she listens, hands rubbing her back. "Your feelings aren't wrong."

Blake's validation is what make her eyes sting with tears for the first time that night.

"I don't even know if the guy she married is her soulmate," Weiss says dully, but she doubts that he is.

The next day, she arranges for her sister to receive a bouquet of flowers and a card, wishing her sister happiness. She stays with Yang and Ruby and Blake in Patch for the break between third and fourth year just like she did the years before.

Falling in love with Blake happens without Weiss' notice. Loving Blake is that easy, it is like breathing. They become girlfriends naturally without preamble. Weiss is more scared of hurting Ruby, of what Yang will think of her caught between these two, but the rest of Blake and Weiss' team and friends support them the way they did went it was Ruby and Weiss.

"As long as you both are happy. I love you both so much." Ruby tells her brightly and Weiss knows she is being sincere.

When they return to Beacon Weiss asks about the soulmate mark on Blake's thigh. She'd suspected it before she'd seen it but she isn't certain what to make of it.

"I'll take care of it," Blake says. Weiss rolls her eyes.

"I wasn't saying that. I was just wondering what the situation is."

"I'll ask. It was my fault in the first place. But it won't change anything between you and me," Blake promises.

"Of course."

Their relationship gets only gets more intimate afterwards. It isn't as easy as falling in love, but it is even more gratifying. Weiss finds herself changing more and more, not because of Blake but because Blake's support enables her to, because Blake challenges her in all the best ways.

They aren't soulmates, but their bond isn't any less than.

Their final year ends and they graduate. While the team relaxes and waits for their first mission as qualified huntresses, Weiss gets a message on her scroll from Jaune. He has met a girl whose soulmate had attacked her at their first meeting, telling her to never show her face in front of her again. Apparently the girl's soulmate was already in love with someone else and had no place for Jaune's girl. Jaune wants her to know he is happy and forgives her.

She rolls her eyes and deletes the message without reading the rest of it, turning her attention to her team and the photo album at Ruby's knee.

"I am so happy to have you," Weiss tells Blake, "I don't think I could be the person I am now without you. I am better because I love you."

"You were pretty awful, when we first met." Blake laughs when Weiss squawks in indignation. "You are so incredible Weiss. I love you, I love having you."

They laugh and Weiss puts her head on Blake's shoulder. When Ruby and Penny and Yang leave to go slay some Beowulves, they look over the album together.

Weiss and Blake don't know if they'll be forever, but Weiss has chosen Blake and she's better for it. She'll work hard to keep what she has with Blake and her team and friends and new family because it is all that she has ever wanted and she'll work to keep it all.

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Thank you for reading. More author notes on Ao3, link on my profile.


	3. want to keep you inside

**Chapter Three,** want to keep you inside

Blake Belladonna had forgotten all about the _Yang Xiao Long_ marked on her thigh when Yang nudges her awake that first night at Beacon Academy so they can talk.

Blake had been thirteen when her soulmate mark activated and she had been expecting (dreading) it. She read the name, but Blake knew even before then that she didn't want it. It wasn't Adam. She'd already known that because Adam's soulmate mark wasn't her. It hadn't mattered because neither of them wanted their soulmate. They had already been pushed around and bullied into things they didn't want and neither of them were going to be forced into a relationship just because it was written into their skin. What if their soulmate was a human?

Even later, when Blake leaves Adam and the White Fang, she plans on rejecting her soulmate. She doesn't need a soulmate, she doesn't need anyone. She'll have only herself and she'll have to be enough.

Yang pulls down the waistband of her pajama shorts to reveal the writing on her pelvis and in the dark Blake can clearly _Blake Belladonna_. That is when she remembers Yang Xiao Long on her thigh and she hikes up her dressing gown to touch it. Yang tries to look at it but it is too dark for her to see.

Blake opens her mouth, but Yang is faster.

"Are you interested?" she whispers.

Blake's lips part and her eyebrows raise as she stares into violet eyes that squint at her in the dark, unable to see Blake the way Blake can see Yang.

Most assume their soulmate wants them. Blake had expected difficulties when the time came to reject her soulmate, something like when she had witnessed the Schnee heiress reject her soulmate and left the kid pleading behind her for a chance. Still, it makes rebuffing her soulmate that make easier.

"No," Blake breathes. "I don't want you."

Yang nods, "kay." Her voice is soft and not in sing-song like when they'd first met.

She doesn't look disappointed but she doesn't look relieved either. Blake watches as Yang's jaw juts out and her chin turns up in determination and then she nods in the dark again before smiling sheepishly.

"Sorry for waking you up. We can discuss boundaries in the morning," Yang says brightly.

They don't get the chance, though.

The next morning they are catapulted into the air and the first person she finds is Yang. Who is now not just her soulmate, but her partner at Beacon apparently. She'd be worried except Yang offers to talk with a professor about getting that changed if Blake is uncomfortable with the arrangement. The school would probably do that for them, given the circumstances. Blake tells her its fine because she figures a partner that respects her desires and comfort this much is better than a partner she doesn't know. Even if her partner is going to be her rejected soulmate. Blake doesn't tell her all that though.

"Just don't expect more from me than partnership," Blake says and Yang shrugs in agreement.

(It ends up that Yang expects a lot from her as a partner and team member, like friendship but luckily never more than Blake can handle)

Being partners with Yang is nothing like being partners with Adam and being with her team is almost like when she had first joined the White Fang, before the White Fang started coercing children into increasingly dangerous and violent missions. She starts to breathe easier than she had since childhood until she slips and says (screams), "Maybe we were tired of being pushed around!"

She runs. She had been ready to run from them from the very beginning, she doesn't know how to do anything else. Maybe she never stopped running, maybe she's been running since that moment she ran away from Adam and the White Fang. Blake doesn't need team RWBY but despite that she misses her team, and she tries not to cry about it to Sun and his kindness.

"I don't care." Weiss tells her later, when Blake tries to explain. Blake doesn't want to keep running, she is tired of running, she wants (needs) safety for the first time in her life and Beacon Academy is the closest to that that she has ever gotten. She wants to face her team and be accepted, but they've already done that without her needing to explain herself. They never needed her to. Blake wipes tears from her eyes.

Yang peeks her head from her top bunk down to Blake's that night and asks seriously in a way Blake hasn't seen from her since that first night, "That isn't why you said no, when I asked you, is it? You being a Faunus? Your past?"

"No, it isn't." Blake says and tells herself she isn't running away. It isn't entirely the reason, anyway but Blake is afraid of Yang, afraid of how much her team and her partner already means to her. She needs her team and she is scared of needing the way she did with Adam.

Sometimes she feels like she could do anything to protect them. She'd done terrible things because Adam had asked her to, because she had needed him. Blake doesn't want to let anyone control her like Adam did ever again.

Things go back to normal, or as normal as they can when her team finds them self in the middle of a war. When Yang tries to tell Blake to slow down, Blake screams at her.

"I told you I didn't want you. Leave me alone!"

"This isn't about being soulmates, Blake. You are my friend, part of my team… you are my partner, Blake."

Blake dances with her partner at the dance as promised and Blake gets mad at herself when she feels like everything is right when she is in Yang's arms.

That night she starts dating Sun. He is good-natured and good for her, even if he is also mischievous and Blake likes being around him, because he makes her laugh and he understands her in a way that her team never will. He is nothing like Adam (and she tells herself he is nothing like Yang).

She doesn't ask about what going on between him and his soulmate mark located on the nape of his neck, _Neptune Vasilias_ , who also his partner and he doesn't ask about Yang.

They stay together through a war, one where their people are being used and manipulated for wanting freedom. It helps to have Sun who knows and understands why she cries because he cries for the same reasons. He holds her together when she finds herself face to face with Adam again, along with her team. It helps, even as it scares her how close she feels to needing him beside her.

When she wants to run away from Adam and everything else, though, it is Yang who convinces to stay.

"We are all here for you. You don't have to run because I know you can do this. But you can if that is what you need to do."

Blake defeats Adam, slays the demon that kept nipping at her heels and kept her running and for the first time when she runs, she has something to run towards and not from: the welcome arms of her team and friends.

Her second year at Beacon is quiet compared to her first year, there isn't any war only recovering from one, which isn't easy but her team manages. Weiss and Ruby start dating and Yang remains a constant beam of sunshine through it all. Blake waits for something to ruin it all, but it never comes and she never has to pack her bags and run. She starts believing she may never have to again.

She breaks up with Sun in his dorm at Haven Academy in person during her a break third year at Beacon. They'd been long distance for most of their relationship.

"I do love you," she cries, "You are one of my best friends. I don't – I can't lose you."

(I need you, she thinks, but it isn't fair when she doesn't love him the way he loves her)

"Then we'll stay friends, Blake." Sun smiles. "Don't cry – you're the one breaking up with me, remember?" he laughs and she giggles through her tears because he is so kind.

She avoids Yang after the break up, and luckily Yang does not seem to notice because Yang is busy supporting her sister through her break up with Weiss. Weiss comes to Blake for comfort and having Weiss to cry with her through the break up is what gets both of them through it.

The entire time she'd been dating Sun, Yang hasn't dated anyone seriously. Sometimes Blake feels guilty and hopes Yang isn't waiting for her. She jumps straight into another relationship with Velvet Scarlatina this time. It isn't a serious relationship, and is mostly for companionship and mutual understanding.

Blake explains her situation with Adam and Sun and Yang, and Velvet tells her about _Pyrrha Nikos_ on her shoulder and how Pyrrha's soulmate mark is _Jaune Arc_. Pyrrha doesn't know about Velvet's mark but it hurts. The two hurt together and kiss the loneliness away. They don't really break up, because they were never really dating, but Velvet tells her that she wants to tell Pyrrha before she graduates. Velvet doesn't expect it to go well, because apparently Pyrrha has given up pining over Jaune and has a girlfriend.

"Um," Velvet hesitates, "It is just that – Pyrrha's girlfriend. It's Yang." Blake laughs until she cries over the absurdity of it all. She isn't jealous, but she doesn't know what to feel about Yang finally dating. Her feelings for Yang confuse her, they scare her even if she knows Yang would never ask her to do anything like Adam asked her to do. Yang has only ever given her all the distance Blake had asked for and still managed to give Blake so much.

Blake isn't sure what she wants with Yang. They aren't soulmates, Blake said that she didn't want Yang and meant it at the time, but now she feels like she might need her. They are teammates and partners and Yang is one of the best friends she has ever had. Blake doesn't want Yang as a lover, she doesn't think.

She falls in love for the first time and it is with Weiss the break before starting her fourth year at Beacon. Loving Weiss is nothing like being with Adam or Sun or Velvet. It is the best of those relationships and more, it is safety and understanding and exciting and unconditional support and Blake is happy.

"Congratulations!" Yang laughs when she finds out and gets them both into a headlock and somehow manages to noogie them both at the same time them until Weiss threatens to break her fingers.

Blake laughs tears into her pillows that night because she finds out that Yang's validation is just as important to her as being with Weiss. At Weiss's prompting, Blake resolves herself to stop running away and she doesn't give herself a chance to prepare, but plunges head on and faces Yang the first chance she gets.

"What are we?"

"Hm," Yang glances over to her with a smile. "What do you mean?"

Blake tries to explain and stumbles over her words and she tries not to cry, all while she has Yang's full attention, "You're my best friend. My partner. But I don't feel like that is all we are. I, I think I want more than that. I need more than that." Blake apologizes through tears.

Yang pulls at the waistband of her new combat uniform and _Blake Belladonna_ is right where it was that first night they met. Then Yang pulls off her jacket and extends her right bicep and shows her an ink and needled tattoo sleeve. Yang had mentioned wanting tattoos but Blake hadn't known Yang had gone through with one and the tattoo is mostly healed.

Amongst the red and white, Blake finds black ink – a black ribbon, a bow coming undone, something shining from within it. "Yang," Blake breathes as she tilts her head, trying to see what is being unraveled.

"We are exactly what you want to be, Blake-y."

Blake chuckles and Yang explains she is getting a tattoo for everyone that matters to her, because the soulmates that born within their skin with aren't the only ones that matter.

"We are partners and best friends, Blake. We can call ourselves soulmates, if that is what you want. But it wouldn't be any more or less than what I already think of you, Blake, and you don't need any more than that, it is all I have to give. I love you and we don't have to be anything other than what you want."

"I want you to be soulmate. Even if it is only a name, a label. Because it matters to me, Yang. You matter to me."

Yang beams, "Okay."

Nothing changes but everything changes all at the same time.

Blake tells Weiss all about it that evening. Weiss grins at her and Blake is glowing, she has more love than she ever imagined she could. When she graduates she goes to Patch with her team and she is home wherever her team is.

Blake looks over the photo album from their time at Beacon with her team and family and Penny. They look together over their old photos, even the ones when times weren't so great. She is wedged between Yang and Weiss, her soulmate and her girlfriend. The album is on Ruby's knee.

Blake doesn't have anywhere she wants to run to, but she is ready to run headlong into whatever the future has in store for her and her team because she trusts that as long as they lead they'll never lead her anywhere she doesn't want to be. She is right where she needs to be for this moment.

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Thank you for reading. Only one more chapter!


	4. i'll take you there

**Chapter Four** , i'll take you there

Yang Xiao Long's soulmate doesn't react upon hearing her name when they meet, not that Yang reacted herself. That night she wakes Blake up and Blake tells her she doesn't want her and Yang is ok with that.

Her parents had been part of a three-way soulmate relationship. Yang doesn't know if they were ever happy, but she knows that her birth mom had left both her soulmates and Yang behind before Ruby had even been conceived. Taiyang and Summer had been happy enough with only each other but Yang connects the dots and figures that Raven had been a constantly missing piece to their family. They'd been planning on having three children, one for each of them and to take their surnames so no child would have to bear three last names, but Raven had left and so Yang and Ruby didn't have a sibling with the last name Branwen.

Then Summer died and Taiyang fell to pieces from losing both his soulmates in less than a decade. Most didn't survive the loss of one soulmate much less two, but her father did. It took a while, but he'd recovered only with and for his two daughters and Qrow.

Yang knows soulmates don't spell a happy ending and she doesn't know why her mom left exactly, but she knows communication is key in any relationship. Especially with soulmates, where so many assumptions are made.

So she communicates with her and Blake doesn't want her as her soulmate in any shape or form and that is okay. Yang'll live and she'll never know what she is missing like her parents did.

Yang isn't certain if destiny is at play or not but Blake ends up being her partner at Beacon. Blake doesn't mind it so Yang doesn't mind it either.

Not having a soulmate to be committed to, Yang supposes she could date but she finds herself unwilling. It isn't really out of any sort of obligation she feels for Blake that stops her, but more a sense of obligation to everyone else's soulmates. Some people like to date before meeting their soulmate and some don't plan on giving a damn about their soulmate when they do meet, but Yang always ends up thinking about their soulmate mark. Some want their soulmate to be their first and only and there isn't any guarantee that both soulmates feel the same in that respect. Yang doesn't want to end up in the middle of anything like that, she doesn't want to be a reason a soulmate relationship ends unhappily like her parents.

(She is scared she already has, with her parents).

Perhaps dating someone like Ruby, who doesn't have a soulmate mark, would be the best and easiest way for her.

Nothing about soulmates really matters when her team and school find themselves at the very center of a war. Especially when Raven Branwen appears just in time to save her from being stabbed right through the heart.

Weiss' family disowns her and Blake is forced to fight the only family she has ever known, all while Yang finds the mother she has never known but has always been looking for. Yang isn't too certain whose side her mom is on for this war but she will have her answers by any means necessary.

Raven's story goes like this: She never wanted a soulmate, much less two. But she did want Taiyang and Summer. She loved them, honestly, just the same as she loved her brother, Qrow.

So they married and had a baby and they moved to Patch and built a home in gray forests , the three of them and Qrow because Raven goes nowhere without her twin. Qrow and Taiyang became teachers at Signal and her and Summer continued their careers as huntresses. When a time-intensive undercover mission is offered that'll get her out of the domesticity, she jumps for it. She never said goodbye, because she never would have been able to leave her team behind if she tried. It was the hardest thing Raven ever had to do.

(Raven says nothing about how hard it was to leave her infant daughter, so Yang assumes it wasn't)

Raven apologizes to Taiyang and Qrow and she howls and sobs at Summer's grave and mourns like Summer has just died. Raven doesn't apologize to Ruby, she doesn't apologize to Yang. Raven only ever wanted her team, never soulmates, never children.

Yang has her answers, but they don't help the ache in her soul, the fear in her bones, and her fears are confirmed.

Her second year at Beacon, Yang still doesn't date anyone. She watches over her team and their friends, supports their relationships, and offers to beat up anyone that breaks their heart. Yang flirts but never anything serious and the only heart she breaks trying to not be her mother is her own. She is happy for Blake and Sun and she is happy for Ruby and Weiss. Yang tries to tell herself that she is happy.

When Neptune and Weiss break up, he tries to make a move on her. Yang punches him hard in the face and then lets him cry on her shoulder.

"She isn't my soulmate, but I, like, loved her," Neptune tells her, "ya know?"

Yang doesn't know.

"My soulmate is Sun, but I don't think I'm his." Neptune tells her after she promises to keep it a secret. "We were friends for, like, a month before I ever found out his name."

(She thinks he might be more of a loser than Jaune, but she doesn't say that out loud)

"I was too embarrassed to ask his name, it wouldn't have been cool. I didn't find out until after we were partners. He's never said anything though." Neptune cries and Yang doesn't know how to relate, so she says nothing and pats his shoulder and feels awkward.

The first half of her third year is spent trying to be there for her team and all of their broken hearts, as well as a confidante to Pyrrha and Sun. Blake avoids her, but Weiss is there for her so Yang just quietly watches over the pair and focuses mostly on her sister.

"I wish I had a soulmate like a normal person, it'd be so much easier" Ruby cries, "Like your stories, Yang. That is all I ever wanted."

"Having a soulmate isn't that easy," Yang confides softly.

Ruby pauses at rubbing her snotty nose and cramming cookies into her mouth, to stare at her eyes wide and red. "Sorry, I shouldn't have –" Ruby stops herself, "You never talk about it. Do you want to? I'll listen. You always listen to me."

Yang scrubs at her sister's face with a washcloth while Ruby whines, "I wasn't talking about Blake and me. She is my partner and friend and I love her and respect what she wants. She doesn't want a soulmate."

Tossing away the cloth, Yang looks at Ruby's ruddy, clean cheeks, "But it wasn't easy for Mom or Dad," she doesn't mention Raven, "or Ren and Nora. Or for any of our friends.

"Love doesn't have to be hard." Yang says and Ruby raises her eyes in question as Yang seemingly contradicts herself, "but I think it is always hard between soulmates. Because the foundation of the relationship is destiny or fate or blood or whatever you call it. You've got to build everything yourself, with a soulmate. Even after the relationship develops, the foundation will always be a superficial start. It isn't easy."

Yang didn't know she thought any of that until she said it – it makes sense, though. Yang might be smarter than she ever gave herself credit for.

Pyrrha comes to Yang to talk about Jaune and her unrequited soulmate mark, as she had since first year because she thinks Yang understands better than anyone else would. Yang disagrees and Pyrrha disagrees with her disagreement. Yang knows Pyrrha would listen and help if Yang would only open up about Blake and Raven and her parents and her fears, but she is scared she'll cry. She is scared if she starts, she'll never stop. So Pyrrha talks and Yang listens.

"I know I'm being silly, hung up over Jaune this long and never even talking about it with him about it," Pyrrha sighs.

"He is still wants a chance with Weiss, because he wants a soulmate. And I know I'd have a chance, because he is that for me. He'd be over the moon for a chance to have a soulmate, even if it isn't Weiss, only… I started loving him because he didn't care about who I am, as a champion. I don't know how I'd feel if the only reason he looked my way was because I'm someone who wears his name on my skin."

Yang braids Pyrrha's hair and Pyrrha exhales in contentment.

"I don't know what you are thinking about Yang and you can talk to me about it, if you wanted. I'd listen. You don't have to hold back. Not just with me, but your team… my team too. We all love you, Yang. I don't know how any of us would have gotten through anything without you. We are ready to help you through anything, if you need it. Truly, Yang. I mean it."

Yang's fingers stop their braiding and she realizes, for the first time, she doesn't feel worth loving, nor deserving.

That night she thinks about Raven abandoning her without apology and Blake's hushed, "I don't want you," her first night at Beacon.

(If Yang hadn't been born, maybe Raven might never have run from her birth daughter and soulmates. Maybe her parents could've been happy and together and alive, if it weren't for her.)

Yang's nails bite into her palms as she tries not to claw herself as she realizes just how much she hates herself.

"This is probably way awkward," Sun tells her and Yang shrugs.

"I dunno. Not really."

Sun falters before continuing, "I really love Blake, even now. I want her to be happy. I think she'd be happy with you."

Yang doesn't answer because that's something for Blake to decide, not her or Sun. Sun groans at her silence.

"I mean, I guess I get it. Neptune's my soul mate, but I'm not his. Soulmate stuff is hard." He keeps talking even as Yang looks up and brackets him on both sides with her arms against the wall.

"Tell me everything."

Yang is almost pissing by the end – Sun had forgotten his soulmate mark's name until after he'd started dating Blake. He'd been planning on being with his soulmate, when they met, but he was going to date other people until then. But it wasn't like he saw the nape of his neck all the time and he'd forgotten all about Neptune Vasilias when he'd met him. By the time he'd figured it out, it was too late to bring it up and anyhow, Neptune didn't seem bothered. Anyway, Blake was great and he fell in love with her and Neptune was a great friend and partner. It is only now that he'd broken up with Blake that he has started pining after Neptune.

Weiss, Yang thinks, is right. Boys are morons.

Yang wrangles Sun and Neptune into talking with her as witness and thanks to her, they've fully realized themselves as soulmates. She tells them that they'd better get someone hot to play her if they sell the rights to their story to be made into a Rom-Com movie.

"That is nice, what you did," Pyrrha tells her later on, a month before the end of their third year, "Helping them get together."

Yang hums, the situation still makes her laugh and she fights a smile. The two sit in companionable silence for a while and Yang starts undoing Pyrrha's ponytail to braid.

"Yang. I think I've gotten over my infatuation with Jaune. It is for the best really."

"I'm happy for you Pyrrha. It's been painful seeing you in so much pain over him."

Pyrrha's eyes are brilliantly green as she pulls her hair from Yang's fingers to face her.

"I'm attracted to you. I think we'd be really great together, if you wanted to try, um. Being together. Dating. Or that is what I'd like." Pyrrha is having trouble maintaining eye contact and her fingers come up to play with her hair. Her eyes are wide.

Yang cries for hours and Pyrrha holds her as Yang tells her everything she has never told anyone and Pyrrha tells her she is worth loving and that she isn't guilty of Raven's crimes. Her hands stroke Yang's hair and she lets her.

"Okay," Yang says, her voice watery and wavering. "Let's date."

"My pleasure," Pyrrha says, smile radiant.

They don't have long together before the last of their upperclassmen's graduation and Velvet finds the two of them there and asks Pyrrha to talk. When Yang tries to leave to let them talk, Velvet asks her to stay.

"You deserve to hear what I've got to say. I don't want to go want to go behind your back." Then Velvet unbuttons her blouse and shows them her soulmate mark, Pyrrha Nikos and Yang's heart stops.

Yang tries to leave again, to let them talk but then Velvet apologizes and says that'll leave instead. She wasn't asking for anything, she just wanted to let Pyrrha know. Yang and Velvet debate which of them should leave and let the other talk with Pyrrha until Pyrrha decides she'll leave and let the two of them talk instead. They sit dumbfounded until a Pyrrha returns a minute later. All three of them talk for a while after that, until somehow they've negotiated that all three of them will date each other.

It is outlandish and reckless and all three of them can't stop laughing at their absurdity.

Yang looks at both of them and thinks she doesn't deserve either of them. She tells them and they tell her different through scroll messages and quick visits all through break until she believes them.

She gets tattoos, soulmate marks of her own creation, inked all over her body, one for every person she loves and loved (Ruby, Taiyang, Qrow, Summer, Weiss, Blake, Pyrrha, and Velvet just to start). She has so much love in her, she is scared she might not have even skin to mark them all. The length of time nor their transience in her life don't matter as much as the love they've shared with her when she couldn't love herself.

When her fourth year starts, Blake tells her she wants to be her soulmate. Yang feels like she could burst.

She never mattered to Raven, but that is ok. She matters to so many more people, to the people that matter to her.

Yang goes on dates with Pyrrha and they bring their scrolls and face-time with Velvet whenever she isn't on actively on a mission but not able to be in Vale with them. She visits occasionally.

It is a bit of a surprise when Nora wriggles her way into their relationship, but not unwelcome and there is more love for all of them.

Before their graduation Yang gets a tattoo for Nora as well. Nora's fingers trace all of her self-made marks and smiles.

"You've missed yourself, silly."

So Yang tattoos a large golden dragon that spans all across her body – her arms, back, and chest – and she feels powerful. She feels loved. For once her confidence feels less like false bravado that she wants to have and more like truth.

Her family and team and soulmate and lovers, her ink and blood and love. She has it all and more.

She parts ways from Nora and Pyrrha to go back home to Patch, but they keep in touch over scroll, same as they've been with Velvet. They'll all visit each other's hometowns when they have the time and they are still discussing who they'll all visit first.

Yang hopes she'll get the chance to have all of her most important people in her childhood home together.

Until then, she is squeezed in with her team and Penny on a sofa that seats three (Weiss grumbling that Yang takes up the most room) and a photo album of pictures of everyone that matters.

Her scroll beeps and it's a message from Nora.

Nora: We will all be there tomorrow evening! Ren is coming too! Hope you've got room! Can't wait to see you!

It'll be a tight squeeze, but it'll be worth it.

It'll be hard, but it will be worth it. They are worth it and she is too. She doesn't know where it is all going to go, but it'll be worth it. It is all worth it, for the feeling she has now. The love she feels for her family, team, soulmate, friends, and girlfriends as well as herself is everlasting no matter what happens next. She looks forward to it.

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Thank you to everyone that has been reading this story! I have three shorts based on this universe planned that I'll post as separate stories as I write them. If anyone has any requests about little things I didn't cover, I might add more! Until then, I'm working on another RWBY fanfic series based upon on of my favorite rarely used fanfic tropes~!


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